Cities: Updates on New Orleans, Jakarta, Venice, Mexico City & more

When you’re in China, Europe is closer than you think.We know the Chinese love Paris – check out the high couture boutiques in the famed Printemps and Galeries Lafayette department stores on Blvd. Haussmann, and you’ll see legions of Chinese tourists. But if you’re in China, it’s possible to see Paris too!

Can you spot which is the Chinese Tour Eiffel and which is the authentic tower? Photo courtesy Paris Syndrome Francois Prost

In the city of Tianducheng, on the outskirts of Hangzhou, China, there’s an 11-square-mile assemblage – added to a 2007 luxury real estate development– with buildings that mimic sites and buildings in Paris: the famed Haussmann-style apartment buildings, a park modeled on the gardens at Versailles, and bien sûr, a one-third size replica of the Eiffel Tower. Take a selfie. Read the fastcodesign story

But there’s more!The Guardian reported last year on the Chinese urbanization scheme: years of creating “ghost cities” in the underdeveloped interior and the sparsely populated “wild west” –a scheme known as Gansu Province’s Lanzou New Area, intended to push people into the interior. Mountains were leveled, rural villages destroyed. Now along with towering apartment buildings you’ll find replicas of the Great Sphinx of Egypt, the Greek Parthenon, Beijing’s Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China. What you see too little of is actual residents.

Real and fake Hallstadt, Austria. Courtesy of Wade Shepard

And more. In Huizhou, Guangdong province, they’ve recreated Hallstatt, a replica of the upper Austrian town, down to the piped in birdsong and “Sound of Music” music tracks. In the suburbs of Shanghai, you’ll find British, Dutch and German-themed suburbs. Are these areas being populated ? Are they vibrant? Time will tell. Wade Shepard writes about Ghost Cities of China in his 2015 book. Read the review

The MSC Musica cruise ship is seen in Venice lagoon in this June 16, 2012 photo. Cruise ships need to be barred from Venice’s Saint Mark’s lagoon, to protect Italy’s floating city from potential damage caused by growing traffic. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini/Files

Venice was a world power In the late 13th century, a maritime giant and Europe’s most prosperous city. Needless to say, things went downhill from there—owing to the Black Death, Napoleon’s incursions and other events. Today it’s a World Heritage siteand go-to destination for some 30 million tourists annually who threaten to cripple the fragile 118-island city with their exuberance– especially daytrippers from gigantic cruise ships. We reported in August 2017 that efforts were deadlocked to limit giant cruise ships that travel down the Giudecca Canal and block views of fabled landmarks , discharging thousands of people onto the narrow streets—an “eat and run” experience.

Now there’s better news. The New York Times reported in November that Italian lawmakers have approved a scheme to keep the largest cruise ships—those weighing more than 96,000 tons– off the Guidecca Canal, traveling instead through another canal and to a new passenger port that will be built in the northern industrial area of Marghera. It will take until 2020 to complete this scheme – and fingers are crossed that nothing stands in the way. However, as the Times, notes, “Smaller ships, weighing 55,000 to 96,000 tons, will still be allowed to rock the gondolas in the heavily trafficked portions of the lagoon. So-called “eat and run” tourism by cruise ship daytrippers is having a deleterious effect on the city, so say many preservationists and locals.

The Unfinished Palazzo book cover

Venice Postscript—a new book!Three exceptional women—from Milan, London and New York—are featured in this new, true account of how they were (serially) tethered to “an unfinished palazzo” on Venice’s Grand Canal in the 20th century. These were women of intellectual curiosity, passion and mettle. Of the three, the tale of heiress Peggy Guggenheim is best known, for collecting brilliant artists as lovers and investing in their work—which later resulted in the palazzo becoming the famed Guggenheim Museum in Venice. Here for the first time you can read how all three– Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Guggenheim – inhabited the cultural and social worlds of Venice with grit and gusto. The Unfinished Palazzo: Life, Love and Art in Venice: The Stories of Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim, Judith Mackrell. (Thames & Hudson) $34.95. Read the New York Times review.

Jonathan Privett, who was living on a canalboat (a thriving subculture that also exists in Amsterdam!) already had bookselling experience operating in street stalls. Paddy Screech, an Oxford English lit grad, was casting about for his next venue.

While bookstores took a downward plunge in the 2000’s (Borders closed all its bookstores in Britain in 2008), these guys found a potent combination in their 2010 startup– water and words! Their customers are so loyal they sometimes leave books to add to the shelves! Read the full backstory in this delightful New York Times article.

NOLA Celebrates 300 Years

A float is seen in the parade down St. Charles Avenue on Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans, Louisiana February 12, 2013. REUTERS/Sean Gardner

It’s got soul, it’s got music, it’s got world vibe, great food scene and plenty of diversity. New Orleans is probably the least U.S.-like city in the U.S. And now it’s celebrating its 300th anniversary, after the French founding in 1718 and Spanish rule in the 18th century, along with rich African-American and Creole culture. The city is having a year-long celebration – pick your season and unique venue. It could be Mardi Gras (on steroids) that’s coming up February 13 – with parades, beads and a party-hearty time. (Check the schedule)

Or consider Halloween on Bourbon Street (I’ve done it!) where revelers on the street mingle with cops on horseback. Plus there’s 135 festivals every year.

Lucky Pernod Ricard! Belzberg Architects of California have created an ingenious façade for the French beverage company’s Latin American offices – called Threads– in Mexico City’s historic Cuauhtémoc neighborhood.

Inside spaces formed by custom-made aluminum strips. Courtesy of Belzberg Architects through Dezeen.

The six-story building is wrapped with 272 curving vertical aluminum strips (custom manufactured in California) that frame the façade and ingeniously create private areas inside. The exterior effect, on two street-facing elevations, makes it a standout among concrete-block structures in a neighborhood that is being revitalized with new office buildings and condos. Read the full Dezeen story. See other examples of Belzberg’s work.

Threads (the building’s name) has a lovely rooftop patio. Courtesy of Belzberg Architects through Dezeen.

This is a mammoth area of some 30 million people, endangered by ample political corruption, rampant overdevelopment, almost nonexistent sewage management, illegal well digging—what Kimmelman calls “self-inflicted wounds.”

Then there’s climate change – extreme weather, freak storms that cause flooding and a possible increase of three feet in sea level within the next century. “Hydrologists say the city has only a decade to halt its sinking,” Kimmelman reports.“ If it can’t, northern Jakarta, with its millions of residents, will end up underwater, along with much of the nation’s economy.” Read Kimmelman’s story and other pieces he has reported on world cities under duress.

Europe’s Green Capital 2018 – Nijmegen, The Netherlands

The oldest city in The Netherlands – its 2,000th anniversary was celebrated in 2005 — Nijmegenis often remembered as a heavily bombed city during the 1944 Operation Market Garden campaign in World War II, with significant loss of life, buildings and bridges.

Nijmegen Bridge Memorial Photo Credit 1st Lt Hannah Morgan 2015

Today it is a growing city of 170,000 in eastern Netherlands, with far-reaching plans to achieve its green ambitions. These contributed to its designation in 2018 as the EU’s European Green Capital for 2018.

Netherlands-Nijmegen, Kronenburger Park

“Nijmegen aims to become energy neutral by 2045 and climate proof by 2050, and wants to reach these objectives together with its local stakeholders; the city considers its inhabitants, entrepreneurs and knowledge institutions as integral to its environmental improvement.”

Sophisticated water management on the Waal River. (Photo Ruimtevoorderivier)

“The city is also running a new campaign called ‘Green Connects’ to increase civil participation in the development of green and blue infrastructure and biodiversity projects. Other examples include the expansion of green space in the city centre, a badger habitat protection project, and ‘permablitzes’ where teams carry out very quick garden makeovers throughout the city.”

Perhaps most impressive is the extent of public participation in creating a windmill park to achieve energy self-reliance. Thousands of people bought shares in the wind turbines abd built bankers’ confidence in the project. Construction of four turbines is now underway—to provide energy to some 7000 homes in the city. Learn more about the European Green Capitals program and Nijmegen

Aussies Top the Global Livability Rankings

Melbourne Australia. Photo courtesy of Tourism Australia.

For seven years in a row Melbourne, Australia, has ranked # 1 in the Global Livability rankings (2011-2017) by the Economist, whose EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) has conducted annual ratings since 2002 on 140 cities worldwide, based on stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure. Vienna ranks second, and Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) is third. See the full rankings

This year’s top 10 is identical to last year’s, with Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, Helsinki and Hamburg all making the cut.

Top 10 | Most livable cities

Rank

City

Score

1

Melbourne

97.5

2

Vienna

97.4

3

Vancouver

97.3

4

Toronto

97.2

5=

Calgary

96.6

5=

Adelaide

96.6

7

Perth

95.9

8

Auckland

95.7

9

Helsinki

95.6

10

Hamburg

95

In the U.S., Honolulu was the top tier city (19) with Washington DC at 31, and New York at 55.

WE LOVE CITIES: Want more news and updates?We’ve published stories on dozens of world cities over the last five years. You can access everything from our homepage — go to the Categories catalogue (on the right of the homepage) and click on “Cities,” and scroll to read about Moscow, New York, Copenhagen, etc.

Want to do something easy?The August 2017 edition of Cities features Rekjyavik Iceland’s new concert hall and swelling popularity with travelers, Hamburg’s new waterfront “city” known as HafenCity (with a fabulous philharmonic hall), Rotterdam’s innovations from gigantic indoor Markthal to floating forests, Rome’s water problems, and “eat and run” tourism in Venice.